Thread by @FondOfBeetles

On sex, balls and factories: a thread.

Let’s imagine a ball-making factory, the squishy, brightly-coloured kind of ball you kick around on the beach with a child (preferably one you own, not one stolen).

In that factory are two production lines. The first line paints balls red and the second line paints balls blue. Both machines are fed by boring beige balls.

At the end of the red line is a big bin labelled ‘red balls’ that is full of red balls.

At the end of the blue line is a big bin labelled ‘blue balls’ that is full of blue balls.

Whilst packing red balls from the red bin for shipment to the local beach emporium of tat, it is discovered that one of the red balls is not quite like the others.

Specifically, it is red ball with spatters of blue paint on it.

It is both interesting and rare.

The packer holds it back for this year’s Secret Santa, the recipient places it on display in the coffee room, and others marvel at how this wondrous object came to be.

An investigation into RedBallGate reveals that an apprentice working the blue line one recent fateful day became curious about what would happen if he stuck his thumb over the blue paint jet.

Having Instagrammed the ensuing arc of blue across the factory floor that delivered a Pollock-style creation up the side of the red machine, he hastily clocks off and buttons his mouth.

And so a red ball with blue spatters was created, an unfortunate case of ‘wrong place’ (just emerging from the red machine) and ‘wrong time’ (as blue paint was sprayed across the machinery).
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You will read me and others define sex in reference to evolved system function.

The system function is binary, across almost all complex life from long before humans came up with Twitter.

This is often mistakenly interpreted as saying that sexed bodies are binary, that is, they come in two types and only two types.

Venus and Mars, if you wish.

Those who say sex is not binary are talking balls. They consider as evidence that sex is not binary the existence of a red ball with blue spatters. After all, it is neither red nor blue, it is a third form, a third colour.

Sex is not binary!

The external sign which advertises ‘Ball Factory (red or blue our speciality!)’ is thus deemed inaccurate.

Furthermore, the factory should no longer discriminate its red from its blue balls. How can it, when this red ball has blue spatters?

Look!, they point.

They say this despite a full understanding that, but for the havoc wreaked by a mischievous worker, the ball would have been a pure red colour.

Those who say sex is binary are referring to the production lines. The rare accident, jaunty jape, or mishap that occasionally produces a ball of mixed colour does not blur the production lines between red and blue.

They will ask: which production line was the ball part of, what happened to create this outcome, and can we sack that idiot who stuck his thumb in the paint?

But these questions do not undermine the material fact of two production lines. The unexpected outcome has a cause, and it will be found in reference to the two production lines.

Those who categorise the factory capacity (‘it makes three colours!’) with their heads stuck solely in the bins need to look up and observe the factory floor.

They will see two production lines for two different types of ball, one red and one blue, that will, if running as intended, produce red and blue balls.

The ball output and the production lines are two different phenomena.

Many who argue that sex cannot be binary ‘because sometimes red balls have blue spatters’ cannot - or will not - understand this nuance.

NB: Respect the red ball with blue spatters. It is exceptional.